Vagabond
by staphylococci
Summary: Missing moments from Deathly Hallows. R/Hr and trio friendship. Ch 8: Ron didn't even have a moment to speak—Harry advanced on the table, swiped the mug of tea across the room, and grabbed Ron by the collar of his jumper. "Is there something wrong with you?"
1. Over the Orchard at Sunrise

A/N: I have been a fan for so many years, but this is my first ever time contributing as a writer. This will be little snippets from DH—effectively the "missing moments" that every author just _has_ to do. I'm hoping to stray from overdone scenes but will, of course, try my hand at what I think are the "essentials" (eg Shell Cottage, holding hands at Grimmauld Place, etc). All of these will be R/Hr or trio friendship, which is what this first one is here.

Title is from the song of the same name by CAAMP.

* * *

 _1\. Over the Orchard at Sunrise_

Upon opening the door to the garden at the Burrow, Harry was greeted by the burning orange of a rising sun over the orchard. It was quite early—he'd left Ron sprawled out on his own bed, open-mouthed and snoring, in search of some time alone before another day of the wedding preparations Mrs. Weasley would no doubt subject them to.

As he peered deep into the backyard, however, he found that the spot at the top of the hill he often took to for respite was already occupied by one bushy-haired silhouette.

He supposed that, on second thought, he wouldn't mind some company.

There was a light breeze blowing over the hill, making a rather chilly morning of what would undoubtedly be another day of oppressive August heat and humidity. Giant cumulonimbus clouds were floating in from the west, suggesting more insidious weather for the afternoon. Hermione sat with her knees pulled to her chest, already dressed in jeans and a maroon jumper that looked suspiciously like it might've belonged to a tall, redheaded Keeper.

As Harry approached, he marveled at Hermione's smallness. He knew he wasn't particularly tall—not by a long shot with Ron as a best friend—and had always been quite slim, yet as sixth year came to a close, he found that he effectively dwarfed all five feet of Hermione. It was genuinely comical to see her next to Ron.

He cleared his throat so as to not startle her with his arrival and she looked over her shoulder, offering him a hollow smile and patting the grass next to her in invitation.

They sat in companionable silence for a while.

"So," said Harry gently, pausing a bit as if to steel himself for what he was to say next, "Hermione Wilkins, huh?"

A shiver flushed through Hermione's body and she sighed heavily next to him. She did not turn to face him, leaving him to admire the way the rising sun cast strips of light across her features. Hermione, the girl he'd loved like family since that first year at Hogwarts so long ago, was no longer a buck-toothed know-it-all; she was a young woman, and a beautiful one at that.

A young woman who had sacrificed so much just by being his friend.

"Well, that's just the point, isn't it?" she said softly. The pitch of her voice was a bit higher than normal, and Harry recognized this as something that happened quite often when she was trying to keep her emotions in check. "Hermione Wilkins doesn't exist."

"Seems a bit of a relief to me."

Hermione's head whipped around and Harry caught a glance of the dangerously unreadable expression on her face. "Excuse me?"

Harry shrugged, leaning to the side to bump her shoulder with his. "Well, yeah," he said in a casual tone. "Reckon it sounds like she'd be a bit daft, with a name like that."

Hermione was speechless. It was something that didn't happen often, but when it did, Harry knew the perpetrator was either in grave danger or—

A lovely laugh rent the air and Harry puffed out a massive exhale of relief before joining in. After a moment, Hermione sighed again and dropped her head on his shoulder. A bit of her wild hair tickled his nose.

"And Hermione Granger is much better, is she?" she asked, and he could hear the bit of insecurity that would never quite go away buried deep beneath the light tone of her words.

"Oh, _loads_."

He felt her cheek pull up in a smile against his shoulder as she relaxed. Harry didn't think she'd ever recover from that day in first year when she'd overheard Ron raving about how she was a nightmare. He snorted loudly at the thought of it, imagining what his first year self would say if he knew then that Ron would end up absolutely head over heels for bossy, proper, and top-mark-earning Hermione.

Perceptive as always, Hermione did not miss his outburst, pulling her head from his shoulder and studying his face. "What are you on about?"

Her eyes were radiant in the sunlight and he studied them: walnut brown, wiser and deeper than the spritely, firecracker cedar of Ginny's. So much about Hermione's appearance had changed over the years, but those eyes were the same—scrutinizing, ingenious, kind.

"Nothing," said Harry. "I just hadn't realized that Mrs. Weasley knitted you a jumper this year."

The effect was instantaneous—Hermione's entire face turned red. "Very funny." She tried valiantly but failed to stifle the grin creeping from one corner of her mouth to the other.

Harry roped an arm around Hermione's shoulders and gave a gentle squeeze, not tearing his eyes away from where the sun had finally finished climbing over the horizon. "We'll find them, you know. After." When, how, or after what, he had no idea. But there was no doubt in his mind—he would find Monica and Wendell Wilkins and fix their memories if it was the last thing he did.

The smile had vanished from Hermione's face and he watched as she brought the back of her hand to her face to swipe away what was undoubtedly a tear that she hadn't wanted him to see. He gave her shoulder another squeeze and said, "You're brilliant, Hermione. Absolutely brilliant."

She met his gaze, her eyes threatening to overflow with tears, and offered a small but genuine smile. "Thanks, Harry."

The moment was shattered as Ron came stumbling up the hill, his shock of orange hair standing up in all sorts of different directions. "Merlin's _cock_ , Harry—"

"Honestly, Ron, do you need to be so—?"

"—I wake up and you're nowhere to be found—"

"—it's hardly difficult to have at least a _tiny_ bit of tact—"

"—check Ginny's sodding room and _you're_ not bloody there—"

" _Ronald!"_ Hermione screeched, standing to her full height and advancing on Ron. She had to crane her neck just to be eye level with his chin. "Watch your _language!_ "

"Well, what d'you expect, Hermione?" Ron roared, throwing his hands into the air in frustration. "We're in the middle of a bleeding war, here, plotting to traverse across the bloody planet in search of little slivers of You-Know-Who's soul _,_ and I wake up and you're both gone, so I search the bloody house just to find it looks like you've been snatched out of bed—"

Ron abruptly stopped speaking, leaving a comical, resonant silence in the wake of his booming ire. His eyes seemed finally take in Hermione in her entirety, and a look of utter confusion mixed with what Harry thought might've been just a bit of unbridled glee settled on his face.

"Hang on—is that my jumper?"

Hermione's jaw dropped open as if she were going to say something, but nothing came out for several moments.

" _DEARS!_ " Mrs. Weasley's angry call came from the Burrow's back door.

Ron cringed and took what seemed to be an involuntary step back towards the garden, much like a dog who'd reached the end of his electric fence. "Coming, Mum!" He turned to Harry and Hermione. "We'd better get back quick; the Delacours will be here in a couple of hours and I reckon there are a couple bits of ceiling left to be scrubbed—"

" _NOW!_ "

Hermione brushed past them and hurried down the hill back towards the house. Harry noticed she was now in a cotton tee shirt.

He turned to Ron, who was holding the bundled up jumper in his hand and staring at it like it had once belonged to the captain of the Chudley Cannons.

"Mental, women are," he mumbled, and they began their descent back toward the Burrow.

Harry would take it with him to the grave, but he was certain that out of the corner of his eye he saw Ron pull the jumper to his nose and inhale deeply once, twice, three times.


	2. Deep in the Woods at Dusk

2\. _Deep in the Woods at Dusk_

"Remember," Hermione called across the clearing, "don't eat anything until we've had a chance to double check it in the book!"

They were camping in a forest in Cumbria. Having hit a dead end in searching for Horcruxes, Hermione had taken to some of her Muggle history books, cross-referencing important dates and places with _A History of Magic._ After travelling into town with Harry and Hermione crammed under the invisibility cloak and Ron disguised by magic, they'd found what they had thought had been a lead to be a dead end, but had decided to wait out the night before relocating _._

"Hermione," Ron whined, stepping over some of the snow-covered underbrush a short ways away from where Harry was inspecting a wilted-looking fern of some sort. Hermione was a good distance ahead of them, brushing snow away from plants with mittened hands, but she turned at Ron's voice.

"What, Ronald?" she snapped, standing to her full height and squinting towards them. The ground was blanketed in a good amount of snow, hitting just below Harry's shins as he trudged through, and it was still coming down in flurries. Patches of white had started forming in Hermione's hair. Harry removed his glasses and wiped them with the back of his glove.

Ron seemed to notice his own tone and blanched. Harry saw his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed thickly. "Nothing—just, d'you think we'll even find anything worth double checking around here? Not that I think you're wrong," he added quickly, "I just—y'know—I dunno much of anything about plants, is all."

It was uncharacteristically cold, even for February, and a bout of bad weather had seemingly descended upon England and refused to let up. Harry had recently gotten over a bit of a cold that Hermione seemed to have picked up. Ron, thankfully, remained blissfully asymptomatic, though Harry suspected that Ron could be on his deathbed and wouldn't utter a single complaint with Hermione around. Not anymore, at least.

Hermione sighed heavily and leant back against a massive oak tree, wiping her nose with the back of her glove and sniffing once, hard. "Oh, I hope so," she lamented. Red splotches had started to form on her cheeks and nose. "I know I haven't been able to find much of anything, but I swear I'm trying—"

"Oi! This looks edible!" Ron shouted, gesturing to a plant that looked quite spritely for a snowy February deep in woods. Ron gathered a handful of the small, black balls into his hand, inspecting them. "Berries, I'd wager. Or grapes."

"Grapes, Ron? In England? In _February?_ " Hermione's voice was more entertained than annoyed, Harry thought, but this, of course, went undetected by Ron.

"Blimey, Hermione, did I not just say I haven't got a clue—"

"But _grapes?_ "

"Wonder if that's a magical plant?" Harry asked abruptly, trying to stop the bickering before it had a chance to gain momentum. "Looks healthy for the middle of the winter, don't you think?"

"Looks delicious, is what it looks," Ron mumbled.

Hermione evidently hadn't heard their exchange from her distance away. "Oh—these look like brick caps, how lucky." She bent at the waist and surveyed some rather homely looking mushrooms protected under a stony ledge. "Better not, though," she sighed. "They might be sulfur tufts—I'd hate to accidentally poison all of us—"

Harry could almost see her brain kick to life as she snapped to a standing position, alarm etched on her face.

"Ron— _NO!_ "

Everything seemed to happen very quickly—Hermione was racing across the clearing, panic emanating from her tiny body—Harry turned to Ron, who had frozen with one of the larger berries centimeters from his mouth—

"Spit it out, spit it out!" cried Hermione, stumbling in her attempt to get to them as quickly as possible.

"I didn't eat it!" Ron exclaimed. He dropped the berries and his wand in surprise. "Honest! Look—" Ron opened his mouth comically wide, and Harry saw no trace of the black berries.

But Hermione was still rushing towards them, face sheet-white, hair billowing behind her. "That's deadly nightshade! It's—"

But what it was, Harry was not sure, because at that moment Hermione lost her footing, appearing to slide across the ground, and it took a moment for him to register what was happening—

 _Crack!_

The sound ripped through the air like a shotgun blast, and there was a high squeal and then the dreadful sound of somebody plunging into the water.

" _Hermione!_ "

They were both moving instantaneously. Though Harry had been closer, it was Ron who reached the break in the ice first, using his gloved hands to frantically shove away the snow that had hidden the pool from sight. The hole was impossibly small, but Harry could see the edges of the ice starting to fracture.

"Ron, careful—"

"She'll drown down there, Harry!" cried Ron. His voice was several octaves higher than usual, and his pupils had dilated so far they almost obscured the fair blue of his irises.

"We're no help to her if we fall in, too!" Harry's brain was working in overdrive, trying to formulate a plan. "My wand!" he said suddenly, reaching toward his back pocket, "My—"

But it was not there—his eyes raked over the snow and there it was, where he'd been standing, it must've fallen out of his pocket—

He started to stand up—if they just had a wand, this would be an easy fix—but the ice made a treacherous creaking sound. Harry sank back to his knees to find that Ron had removed his gloves and started shoving his hands as far as he could into the frigid water, reaching wildly for Hermione and breaking off pieces of ice around the edges of the hole in an attempt to make it bigger.

"Sod it," Ron growled, and flung himself into the pool.

There was a terrifying moment of utter peace and silence in which Harry's horrified mind entertained the thought of _what would I possibly do without them?,_ but before he could fully collapse in on himself, before he could consider the idea of fetching his wand again, Ron's head and torso emerged from the water, one long arm wrapped all the way around Hermione's chest, the other waving wildly in an attempt to tread water.

"Over here!" cried Harry, extending an arm and inching backward on the ice as far as he could.

"I've got her," Ron huffed, almost more to himself than to Harry. He was pallid, pupils still blown wide, teeth chattering and limbs quivering. He pulled himself toward the edge of the crack in the ice and stopped treading water. Hermione's slight figure was crushed against him. "I've got her—I can stand here, I—I've got her—"

"Hand her here!"

Ron lifted Hermione as best he could and placed her on the ice. Harry grabbed her hand—it was freezing and horrifyingly limp—and tugged her towards him, mystified by how light she was. Once they were close enough to the bank, Harry rose to his feet with an arm around her waist, dragging her back toward the base of a fir tree and settling by her head.

Harry was shaking so badly that he couldn't catch his breath. Hermione was ashen, mouth slightly open, eyes shut—was she breathing?

"No," Harry muttered, giving her shoulder a shake—it certainly didn't look like she was, but he couldn't be sure—not with how badly he was trembling. "No—come on, Hermione—"

A moment later, there was another bone-chilling _crack,_ and Harry ripped his attention from Hermione to watch as Ron heaved himself from the pond, scrambling on hands and knees away from the broken edges of ice. He had just barely made it to the shore when the glassy surface split into fragments.

"I need a wand!" Harry yelled, but Ron had already closed the distance between them.

"Hermione," he said, falling to his knees beside Harry. "Hermione—wake up, Hermione—" He said her name like it was a prayer, one giant hand cupping her cheek delicately. "Harry—why isn't she—"

Harry retrieved his wand and sprinted back to the pair, pointing his wand directly at Hermione and shouting, " _Rennervate!"_

Ron had taken her into his arms and was smacking her back with one powerful hand. The sound echoed through the clearing and Harry felt his blood turn to ice—she couldn't, there was absolutely no way; she couldn't—

" _Hermione?"_

There was a spluttering noise and then an agonal gasp—two of the most beautiful sounds Harry had ever heard—and then Ron was crushing Hermione to his chest, muffled sort of choking noises tearing from him and spilling into the air. "Thank God," he was repeating in a voice Harry had never heard from him before.

Harry fell to Hermione's side, gently pulling her from Ron and wrapping an arm around her. He patted her back as she continued to retch into the snow. Her breaths came in wheezes.

Ron looked absolutely shell shocked, leaning backward and cupping a hand over his eyes. His jaw was so tight that Harry thought he might break his back teeth.

A shiver tore through Hermione like a convulsion. "We need to get you inside," Harry said. Then to Ron, "Both of you."

Wordlessly, Ron gathered Hermione into his arms, rose to his feet, and started marching toward where they'd set up the tent.

"Ron," Hermione croaked.

"I've got you."

"No—" A shiver cut her off. Harry thought he just might've seen a ghost of a smile on her lips. "Don't—don't eat the berries."

* * *

Once inside the tent, Ron and Harry worked wordlessly.

Harry took to gathering all of the extra blankets they had lying around the tent and cast a powerful warming charm over them. After depositing them at the base of Ron's bunk, he busied himself in the kitchen preparing a kettleful of the hottest tea he could manage.

In his periphery, he watched as Ron settled Hermione on his bunk and cast a drying charm over her, and then a second one for good measure. One of his hands rose to her cheek to pull her hair from her face. Hermione was either too tired or too cold to comment—her eyes were closed and her arms were wrapped tightly around her torso in what appeared to be an attempt to stop herself from shivering.

"Harry's making some tea," Ron said, voice softer than velvet. He was perched at the edge of her bunk. "You need to warm up."

Hermione pushed a hand behind her to sit up and Ron surged forward, one hand at her back and the other guiding her shoulder forward. "Let me help you," he said.

"I'm more than ca—capable—"

"Of course you are," Ron said sincerely. He seemed to have reigned in his emotions, but Harry could still see the concern weighing heavily in each tensed muscle of his body. "But you just went swimming in February because I was too much of a git to wait and find out if what I was eating was poison. So I reckon I owe you."

Harry smiled.

Delicately, Ron helped Hermione into a sitting position, reaching for a maroon mound of fabric at the edge of his bed. "In you go, then," he said, and began to pull the jumper over her head.

He asked her if she was alright a total of seventeen times in under ninety seconds, by Harry's count.

Harry summoned the cup of tea he'd prepared and turned back toward the bed. He was distracted, momentarily, by the look on Ron's face as he (quite indiscreetly) took in Hermione's form huddled in just jumper beneath his quilt.

Harry cleared his throat as subtly as he could and Ron's ears immediately turned bright red as he recognized what he'd been doing. "Uh, cheers," he said, and accepted the cup from Harry.

Though he knew it was a moment in which he did not really fit, Harry leant against the table in the kitchen, studying the way Ron helped Hermione settle the cup in her hands and take a sip. "Easy, there," he said softly when Hermione started coughing.

It was a side of Ron that he saw rarely, if ever, but a side that had certainly become more prominent after the breakup with Lavender. Harry knew that Ron was a fierce protector and loyal friend to both him and Hermione—this had been clear from the moment Ron had sacrificed himself in a living game of wizard's chess—but Ron's tenderness with Hermione was newfound and touching, and something Harry still found hard to believe, despite bearing witness to it firsthand.

He knew for a fact that there was no chapter on this in _Twelve Failsafe Ways._

"Oh, I'm so sorry _,"_ Hermione croaked, taking her free hand and covering her eyes with it. Her hair was frizzy and wild, no doubt a result of Ron's multiple drying charms. "I saw you with those berries, Ron, and I just panicked, and I didn't know the ice—"

"Blimey, how would you have known?" said Ron. "Give yourself a break, will you? You nearly drowned!" She started to cough violently again and he rubbed her back, casting a nervous glance toward where Harry stood in the kitchen. "Harry, we need to get her to a Healer, she—"

"Absolutely not!" Hermione cried through another coughing fit. Her eyebrows were furrowed, as they often did when she was frustrated. "I am _fine_ ," she insisted. Another shiver tore through her. "A bit cold, and water-logged, but I am _fine_."

Ron's eyes were begging as they met Harry's again and then turned back to Hermione. "Hermione," he said seriously. His free hand found one of hers. "You haven't eaten properly in months, we've been freezing our arses off night after night, you can't weigh more than—"

"Oh, so that's it, is it? I'm too _weak_ to manage a bit of ice water?"

An agitated sound ripped from Ron's chest as he got off the bed and paced for a moment, raking his hands through his still-wet hair. Hermione huddled herself a little bit further under the blankets, but still looked irate. Harry took a tentative step toward them, knowing Ron's temper could betray the good intentions he no doubt had.

"Fucking hell, Hermione!" he roared, his footfalls heavy in the silence. "You weren't breathing when we pulled you out! There's got to be—I dunno—water in your lungs, and that can't be good, and if you get even sicker we won't be able to—"

"Ron," Harry said gently, placing a gentle hand on Ron's shoulder. He took it as a good sign that Ron stopped pacing and did not throw it off. "Mate, she looks okay—"

Hermione's anger was gone, her voice soft and small from Ron's bunk. "Honest, Ronald—I feel fine, I think I got everything up—"

A wet cough rumbled through her chest and she grimaced, holding a hand to her chest.

"We can try to get some Pepper-Up Potion next time we're near a wizarding village," said Harry. "We'll leave in the morning and that's the next place we'll go."

Ron's face was still set tight, his lips in a thin line, and he sat on the edge of the bunk again, facing Hermione. His hands—pale, scarred, freckled—found Hermione's shoulders, slid up her neck, landed on her cheeks—his thumbs traced the space just below her eyes, dark with bags—and Hermione shivered. Harry couldn't imagine that Ron's hands were very warm, but wagered that the shiver was one of a different origin.

From his spot just behind the two of them, Harry could see Ron's pale blue eyes absolutely drilling into Hermione. Harry once again realized that this was a place in which he didn't belong—the way Ron was holding Hermione in his gaze was oddly intimate. Loving. He willed himself invisible.

"I'm not losing you again," Ron said, tracing a thumb over Hermione's blue-tinted lips. "Do you hear me? Not ever again."

With that, he was on his feet again, one hand to his face with fingers pressing on his temples as he stalked out the front flap and into the frozen winter night beyond it.

Harry slinked back toward his own bunk, watching as Hermione raised a trembling hand to her lips, tracing where Ron's cold fingers had just vacated.

* * *

A/N: I wrote this quite a while ago but have been sitting on it, thinking I needed to change it, thinking I could improve it, before finally deciding that this was how it came out and this is how it's going to stay. So here you are!


	3. In the Boys' Dormitory, Mid-Morning

_A/N: This wasn't even a moment I'd planned on writing or even considered; it just sort of came to me as an idea and started writing itself late last night and wouldn't stop. I hope you enjoy._

 _Also, these are, quite obviously, not going to go in order - I've got several more to write yet._

 _I also wrote a large part of this on my phone, which has the awful glitch where it's replacing the letter "I" with weird symbols; I took the chapter back down and tried to fix this as I noticed it after posting. I think I've fixed it - it's not showing up on my doc here, but will show up on my phone. If it's an issue, let me know in the reviews!_

* * *

 _3\. In The Boys' Dormitory, Mid-Morning_

Harry woke up to a gentle stream of light through the curtains of his four-poster. For a moment, he was completely disoriented—he was supposed to be in a tent, he was supposed to be freezing, he was supposed to be starving—but just as he shot into a seated position, noisily grabbing his wand from the bedside table, memories of the last twenty-four hours began to flood his senses. Every muscle of his body ached impossibly; despite the long shower he'd taken, every part of him reeked of smoke and soot and chill; the room was so impossibly quiet that he wondered if he was alone.

With a low groan, he turned to look to his right—and nearly hexed Ron in surprise.

His redheaded best mate was cross-legged between their beds, a finger to his lips—the universal _shhh—_ as he peered urgently at Harry. Harry froze, unsure if there was a threat, and gripped his newly repaired holly wand a bit more tightly in his hand.

"Relax, mate," whispered Ron, who looked more worse for the wear than Harry had ever seen him. His normally mischievous blue eyes were dull in the orange glow of what Harry assumed must be mid-morning; his scars from the Department of Mysteries were nearly invisible beneath cuts, scrapes, burns and bruises from the days previous. "I just don't want to wake her."

Harry opened his mouth to ask which _her_ he happened to be referring to, as they were in the boys' dormitory, of course, when there was a bit of movement on Ron's bunk that revealed a wild mass of brunette curls beneath the deep red bedsheets. A further movement revealed a bare back beneath those curls, littered with wounds and bruises of its own, right down to just above the base of the spine, where the sheets pooled and hid the rest of the body.

Perhaps more disconcerting than the fact that the skin was so marred, or the fact that said skin belonged to Hermione, who appeared to be naked in Ron's Hogwarts bed, was the horrifying number of vertebrae, ribs, and other bones that were so clearly visible beneath the injuries.

About a million questions zoomed through Harry's groggy mind, but Ron must've read his expression and offered an exasperated glance. "She said she couldn't sleep, that she had a nightmare. I could tell she'd been crying pretty hard," he said somberly. He held her in his gaze like she was a precious gem. "She came up here after she showered and was out as soon as she hit the pillow." He swallowed what appeared to be a lump in his throat and didn't meet Harry's gaze as the tips of his ears burned red. "In her towel," he added.

The past couple of years had marked a change in Ron and Hermione's friendship, Harry knew. He'd been there for all of it—the ups and the downs, the jealousy and the fondness—but the catalyst for all of it, he knew, had been Ron's maturation. Perhaps he'd been a bit early in his predictions, but Harry had his suspicions that Ron had fancied Hermione since the early days of third year.

It seemed to be a bit of an alarming progression, though, that Hermione had slept next to Ron in his twin-sized four-poster in nothing more than a towel mere hours after the end of a war and, as far as Harry knew, their first kiss.

Harry opened his mouth to voice this but was silenced by the turn of Ron's head as he seemed to forcefully rip his eyes from Hermione. Concern, exhaustion, and a touch of something else that Harry couldn't quite identify sat heavily on his features.

"I panicked," Ron said, a tremble in his voice. "Once she was asleep, I moved down here. I mean—blimey—she was—and I—I couldn't—"

He looked to Harry helplessly. Harry smiled sadly and adjusted his position, so he was sitting sideways on his bed. "You know, Ron, I don't think you're nearly as slick as you imagine you are."

A bit of redness spread from Ron's ears to his cheeks and neck, but he cocked his head to the side in either true or mock confusion, Harry couldn't tell. "Not sure I follow you."

"I could tell you were mad for her back in third year."

Ron raised a hand over his shoulder to scratch his back, looking to Harry sheepishly. "Second, actually."

What must've been a dopey grin broke out across Harry's face. " _Second year_?"

"Reckon I realized it when she was petrified."

Harry snorted.

"What?"

"Seems like the only way you two can ever get a move on—or stop rowing—is one of you nearly dying."

"Well, you know what they say. Near-death experiences make the heart grow fonder," Ron said bitterly.

Hermione groaned in her sleep and curled a bit more forward into Ron's pillow, inhaling deeply as she did. As her back arched, each individual vertebra seemed to become more pronounced against the battered skin of her back. Harry felt a wave of nausea roll over him as Ron sucked in a shuddery breath.

"How did we not notice?" Ron asked in a broken voice.

Harry considered asking what they hadn't noticed, but it was obvious, and they both knew it: Hermione was severely malnourished. The three of them had lost significant weight throughout the year on the run—between scouring for meals, battling illnesses, and logging countless steps, it was lucky any of them had even made it out alive of the winter alone—but Hermione was absolutely skeletal, even compared to Harry's chronically underfed frame and Ron's lanky, too-tall-for-his-own-good one.

"Well, she's always been small," Harry pointed out. He knew he was grasping at straws here, searching for some sort of small comfort that might silence his own concern and what he assumed was a full-blown panic on Ron's part.

" _Harry_ ," Ron said emphatically, gesturing to her bare back again with a terrorized look and confirming Harry's assumptions. Harry sighed and nodded once, removing his glasses and rubbing a hand over his face.

When he put his glasses back on, Hermione was covered by the quilt again, and Ron was settling back onto the floor, eyes fixed on the rug beneath him. His body language indicated defeat. Harry was too tired to try to make him feel better—it had been a long day, a long year, a long _seven_ years.

"She gave me her sodding mushrooms," Ron said in a voice that Harry recognized as one that was often accompanied by tears. "All I did was complain about being hungry, and complain that we had nothing to eat. And she gave me her sodding mushrooms to shut me up. And now look at her."

He sniffed loudly and his shoulders started to shake. Harry waited a moment before rising from his bed and sitting down next to him, clapping a hand over Ron's shoulder and leaving it there in what he hoped was a comforting manner.

The break in Ron's composure was short-lived. Noisily, he dragged the back of his hand across his face, and sniffed again. When he turned to Harry, his bloodshot eyes and blotchy cheeks were the only indication that he'd cried at all. "M'sorry. Been a wild couple of months, hasn't it?"

"That might qualify as an understatement."

The pair laughed half-heartedly and Harry pulled his hand from Ron's shoulder, leaning back against the side of his bed and wrapping his arms around his bent knees.

They had just settled into a comfortable, thoughtful silence in which Harry had begun contemplating when the last time he'd eaten was, when from Ron's bed, Hermione started to quiver a bit. What looked like little shocks seemed to shoot through her muscles as she slept.

Harry stumbled to his feet, grabbing for his wand a second time, looking wildly about the room for some sort of invisible source of nonverbal magic that could explain this. Wildly, he wondered where he'd last left his Cloak—if someone had snatched it they could be underneath it and cursing her—he raised his wand and tried to remember the wrist movement for _Homenum Revelio—_

Ron, however, shook his head, raising an arm toward Harry. His freckled face looked a thousand years old, aged by fatigue and terror and worry. "She's alright," he murmured, studying the space where her figure was now huddled beneath his blankets. "Residuals from the Cruciatus," he explained gravely. Harry noted that every cell of Ron's body seemed rigid and prepared to spring up at any moment.

"The Cruciatus?" Harry echoed. "But that was weeks ago. How didn't I—"

"Mate, you had your own things to worry about—"

"Like hell I did!" Harry snapped, sitting more upright on the floor and leaning in toward Ron. "You two have always been my priority—"

"Would've been foolish if we were at that point," Ron said sagely. "She insisted she was okay after Fleur saw to her, made me promise that I wouldn't worry you. I did a bit of research, I guess in… cases as extensive as hers, this sort of thing can go on for years. Longer, maybe."

Ron's jaw was locked tightly, knuckles white where his hands had balled into irate fists.

"Should we wake her?" Harry asked.

Ron shook his head, eyes not leaving Hermione. "I usually wait until it gets bad," he said. His voice sounded a bit tortured. "It's hard—she needs rest, if I woke her every time she looked a little uncomfortable she'd never sleep—but at the same time, to watch her like this, to wonder…" Ron trailed off, either unable or unwilling to finish his sentence.

Harry sighed frustratedly and dragged a hand through his hair, messing it up even further than nature typically saw to.

"So the nightmares—"

"Obviously you know about those," Ron said quickly, and Harry nodded. Almost every night at Shell Cottage, they'd all been awakened by Hermione's panicked cries and Luna's soft voice as she attempted to calm her. Eventually, Ron had started to stay with her again, which hadn't stopped the nightmares, but had at least kept them quiet enough so as to leave the rest of the cottage in the dark when they were happening.

"Those haven't stopped either," said Ron quietly. "I'd wager those might go on just as long as the Cruciatus residuals."

Harry felt a surge of guilt. These last couple of months, he'd only cared about the mission—only cared about the horcruxes—and as a result had been completely ignorant to Hermione's struggles.

Struggles _he_ had caused, by opening his blasted mouth and uttering Riddle's name.

Ron's voice broke Harry's reverie; when he looked over, Ron was studying the lump of bedclothes that was Hermione, his gaze full of such affection that Harry almost felt he ought to look away.

"She wasn't this thin back in March, at the cottage. I mean—she was _thin_ , too thin, even Fleur said something—but not like this."

Harry considered his words, considered Hermione's current trembling, whimpering state. "Reckon it's from—" he stopped, closed his eyes, found he couldn't bring himself to say the name of that dreaded curse out loud, "… the Manor? She couldn't keep much down at first, at Bill and Fleur's."

"But we'd've noticed, wouldn't we?" Ron said desperately. He seemed quite distressed that he could've missed this detail. "We were with her the whole time! Wouldn't we have noticed? Said something?"

Harry remained silent on this issue, failing to remind Ron that he hadn't even noticed the residuals from the curse. He allowed the guilt to settle over him again, thick and cold.

Ron dumped his head into his hands again and heaved a giant sigh, shaking his head as he did so. "I dunno, Harry. I don't," he lamented into his palms.

There was a beat of silence before Harry settled his intense gaze on Ron, who must've sensed it and turned to look at Harry.

"And _your_ nightmares, then?"

Ron blanched and immediately looked away, fiddling with the edge of the ragged jumper he'd worn to bed. Harry might've been unaware of Hermione's struggles, but he'd slept next to Ron for seven years, one of which was in remarkably close quarters in a tent and then in the sitting room of a cottage. A lot had changed in him after Malfoy Manor.

The way he treated Hermione, of course, was the most obvious. In front of everyone, not caring who saw, he doted on her, often sporting an expression that Harry had only ever seen him wear after a bit of love potion courtesy of Romilda Vane. At meals, Ron spent his time watching Hermione as indiscreetly as possible, rather than inhaling second and third helpings of meals as if his stomach were a black hole.

Throughout all of this, he'd remained oblivious to Harry's observance.

The biggest difference that Harry had noticed, however, had come in Ron's sleeping patterns. Ron had once been someone who could sleep for twenty-four hours straight, if not forcefully shaken awake. After Hermione's torture, though, Harry would frequently wake to find Ron walking along the shore before anyone else in the cottage had risen for the day.

Often times, Harry was jarred awake in the early hours of the morning to Ron's incoherent shouts as he tossed and turned beneath his quilt on Shell Cottage's sitting room floor. More than once, Harry had found himself in a headlock with a wand to his throat, a half-sobbing, deranged Ron convinced that he had Greyback in his arms.

The question had been rhetorical—of course Harry knew Ron's nightmares hadn't subsided; Ron had had one two nights ago, before they'd busted into Gringotts—but Ron tended to focus on the wellbeing of others before his own ( _especially_ when it came to Hermione), and Harry knew from experience that this was often not the healthiest of coping mechanisms.

"I'll be alright," Ron said.

Harry decided not to push the issue. At least not just yet.

Although it was at least ten o'clock in the morning at this point, judging by the intensity of the sun coming through the windows, Harry still didn't feel like venturing down to the Great Hall, or even the Common Room, for that matter. A shared glance with Ron indicated that he felt the same way.

"Kreacher," Harry said quietly, and almost immediately, the ancient house elf had Apparated into the space.

"Master Harry," croaked Kreacher as he bowed slightly.

"Are you alright?"

"Kreacher is well, Master Harry."

"Would you mind bringing us something to eat?"

"Scones," Ron said suddenly, flushing when Harry turned to him questioningly. "They're Hermione's favorite," he added.

"Right," said Harry. "Some scones, and perhaps some sandwiches, if you can?"

Kreacher nodded and was gone just as quickly as he'd arrived.

A sigh came from Ron's bed as Hermione turned over in bed. Only her head poked out from the quilt, but Harry suddenly became acutely aware that she was still completely naked in Ron's bed, and now was laying with her front toward them.

"She'll murder us when she wakes up," said Harry.

"Oh, don't I know it," Ron mumbled. "Been trying to figure out how to go about this for hours."

"What d'you mean?"

"Well," said Ron. "She needs to sleep. But she also needs to eat. Also think she'll have our necks if we're awake too long without waking her. But if I wake her and she realizes she fell asleep in my bed in just a towel, she might have my neck anyway. Truly a lose-lose all round."

"You're mental," said Harry with a chuckle and a smile.

Ron turned to him with a twinkle in his eyes that had been missing for months. "Reckon I am, when it comes to her."


	4. Round the Fire in February

_A/N: A quick one that also wrote itself in less than an hour. Enjoy!_

* * *

4. _Round the Fire in February_

"Oi, Harry," Ron said one evening over the fire. It was winter, freezing cold, and pitch black. Hermione was just getting over a particularly nasty cold; Ron and Harry had demanded to split the watches overnight so she could sleep uninterrupted.

She, of course, had vehemently declined.

It was for this reason both Harry and Ron sat around the fire—both refused to wake her up, and had silently agreed to pair up for what would be her third of the night on watch.

"Mm?" said Harry, looking up from where _The_ _Tales of Beedle the Bard_ was illuminated by his wand in his lap.

"What d'you reckon that last thing Hermione smelled in Amortentia was?"

Harry snorted loudly. "From our first Potions lesson? _Last year?"_

"What?" Ron asked defensively.

"Oh, excuse me," said Harry sarcastically, "you're absolutely right, that's a totally normal thing to be thinking about in the middle of the night in February in the freezing cold, a year after it happened, while we're fighting for our lives and—"

"Alright, alright, _blimey,"_ said Ron, raising his hands in defense. "Merlin, sorry for asking."

"What on earth are you thinking of _that_ for?"

"I dunno." Ron shrugged and raised a long arm over his shoulder, scratching the back of his neck. "Was just thinking of last year, I guess, and how badly I buggered it up, and I thought of that moment."

"Got to be books or quills or something mad, doesn't it?"

"Well, she did say new parchment. And freshly mown grass, but then she stopped, almost like she was… I dunno, _embarrassed_ —"

"You're telling me you actually remember this?"

"Hey! I _do_ listen, you know—"

"You listen when Hermione talks about what she smells in love potion, do you?"

"Oh, _sod off_."

"No, no, wait," Harry said, raising his palms in surrender. "Okay, I'm done being a git—"

"You're sure about that—"

"Listen," Harry said, shrugging his shoulders, "it'd have to be a person, right? That's why she wouldn't've said it, why she would've been embarrassed."

Ron was silent for a few long moments, seeming to absorb this monumental suggestion.

"Right," he said slowly, nodding as he did. He swallowed thickly and rubbed his neck again. "Alright. Yeah. Makes sense. Who d'you reckon it was, then?"

"Well," Harry said pensively, furrowing his eyebrows. "It couldn't be a family member—that wouldn't be embarrassing, would it? No, it'd have to've been someone that everyone in class would've known."

Ron nodded emphatically.

"Well, it's obvious, isn't it?"

Ron didn't move a muscle. "Yeah?" he asked weakly. "You think so?"

"Of course," Harry said. "Cormac McLaggen."

Ron's face dropped and then assumed a brilliant shade of purple Harry had previously thought to be impossible. An instant later, a snowball was rocketing toward Harry's face and he ducked just in time to watch it soar over where his head had been.

Harry couldn't stifle his laughter. "What the bleeding hell was that for?"

"For being a tosser."

"Oi!" yelled Harry, brushing himself off from where he'd dived into the mud with a grin. "C'mon, Ron, you're being daft. If you haven't figured out she's mad about you—"

"Oh, _please_ ," Ron rolled his eyes. "Yeah. All the girls love the poor, lanky ginger—doesn't even have two Knuts to rub together between his freakishly long fingers—plus, I mean— _hey_ —what makes you even think I'd—"

"Aside from the fact that I've been blissfully caught in the middle for the better part of a decade, mate, have you forgotten I was there for the Horcrux?"

Ron was silent after that. Harry was not sure if this was stubbornness or something else entirely.

"Fine," Harry said, closing _Beedle_ and scooting a bit closer to Ron. "Humor me. What do _you_ smell in Amortentia?"

Ron's face flushed brilliantly in the light thrown by the fire. His eyes lit up in a way Harry rarely was on the receiving end of.

"Mum's chocolate scones," Ron blurted immediately. "Quaffles." He stared down at his hands and started wringing them together. "Reckon that's it."

"For the love of God, Ron—"

"Fine!" Ron said, sitting as straight up as possible. "Fine, alright! It's her—I dunno, I guess her perfume—it smells kind of like vanilla, kind of like cinnamon, and like—like, I dunno, fresh air—"

"Perfume?" Harry said incredulously. "Hermione doesn't wear perfume."

"Of course she does, no human just _smells_ like that—"

"She doesn't wear perfume. Ginny told me last year. Only ever rarely wears the one you got her, and that's just for special occasions, like the wedding. I guess she told Ginny she feels too 'gaudy' when she wears it."

"What the sodding hell does—"

"How should I know? All I'm saying is _Hermione doesn't wear perfume_. At least not one that smells like freedom and biscuits or whatever you're on about—"

"Alright, easy—"

"—that one you got her smells like Dudley's grandmother; God, what an atrocious smell—"

"Give it a rest, will you?"

"Sure. Absolutely. Straight away. After you accept that you smell Hermione in Amortentia."

A long pause stretched out before them. Harry peered at Ron, who had craned his head up to look at the sky. When he didn't get a response after several minutes, Harry opened his book again and muttered, _"Lumos._ "

He'd only made it about halfway down the page when Ron cleared his throat from across the fire.

"Harry?"

"Yeah, Ron."

"What do… what do _you_ smell in Amortentia?"

Silence. A beat.

"Er…" _Not your little sister. Absolutely not your little sister. Definitely, certainly_ not _your—_

"Fucking hell, forget it, I don't want to know."


	5. At Shell Cottage by Moonlight

_A/N: Review and let me know if you're reading! I'm also open to requests._

* * *

5\. _At Shell Cottage by Moonlight_

For the first time in as long as he could remember, Harry had fallen into a peaceful, blissful, dreamless sleep.

Hours earlier, His stomach had been filled by a delicious homemade stew cooked by Fleur; he'd taken a long, hot shower, spending an hour under the stream scrubbing away layers of chill and grime; he'd huddled on the rug of the sitting room beneath dozens of Molly-knit Weasley quilts; everyone he cared about, as far as he knew, was safe from harm.

Above all else: Hermione was miraculously, incredibly, impossibly alive. And _sane._

In the daylight, they had buried Dobby, established a sort of plan for once they'd built up some strength, and leaned heavily on each other for support. Hermione had fought through the hours looking nothing short of a corpse; Ron had half-carried her up the steps around half six in the evening and stayed with her until she'd fallen asleep.

When he'd reappeared in the sitting room, his eyes were tired and haunted.

"How is she?" Harry had asked, sitting upright and searching Ron's usually quite readable features for some sort of clue.

"Says she's fine," Ron had said tiredly, but his expression was tight and revealed nothing, which Harry thought to be a bad sign. "But I know better. I can see it in her eyes. Stubborn, that one."

Now, hours later, in the moonlight, Harry rocketed into a sitting position, ripped from sleep by the panicked screams coming from next to him.

"No! No, NO—Hermione, _NO!"_

Ron. Harry grasped wildly about, grabbing for his glasses and his wand and anything that could be used as a weapon—

"No, NO—"

From Harry's other side came Dean's nervous, gentle voice. "Ron, mate—"

" _NO!_ "

It took Harry mere moments to register that there was indeed no threat—as he jammed his glasses on his face he scanned the room, Hermione was not here, and Ron was still asleep despite his violent thrashing, obviously having a night terror from which even his own screams would not wake him.

"Fetch Fleur," said Harry to Dean quickly. In lieu of explanation, he said, "Dreamless Sleep."

Dean nodded once and was gone.

Harry crawled over to where Ron was twisted in his own quilt. Reaching a tentative hand out, he rubbed Ron's shoulder. "Ron," he said urgently, voice still scratchy from sleep, "Ron—you're alright—we're all alright—"

" _HERMIONE!"_ Ron bellowed in response. His voice was ragged, no doubt from the yelling of the day previous, but he was also openly sobbing. In the silver glow that flooded the room, Harry could see that his reddened cheeks were damp with fat tears.

"Ron!" Harry tried, but it was no use—the redhead continued to flail and cry and shout—

There was a stumbling sound from near the kitchen and Harry turned in time to see Hermione, huddled in a dressing gown of Fleur's, barely catch herself on the banister at the base of the stairs. Her face was sheet-white, covered in bruises and cuts, and contorted in a mask of fear and what Harry thought must be agonizing pain: mere hours earlier she'd been tortured to the brink of insanity by arguably the cruelest witch of the last century, nearly killed by the weight and carnage of a falling chandelier, and then treated painfully with rounds and rounds of Skele-Gro, blood replenishing potions, and loads of other barmy things Fleur had pulled from her medicine cabinet.

For a moment Harry was torn—his immediate reaction was to go to Hermione: weak, tortured Hermione, who needed her rest, who should surely not be leaning so heavily against the wall unassisted, who looked far too pale to be conscious; but then there was Ron: Ron, who was actively being tortured himself, albeit in a very different fashion; Ron, who was going to wake up the entirety of Tinworth, at the rate he was going—

There was a flurry of movement in the dark—Harry didn't even have a moment to gather his bearings—and then, suddenly, it was: Ron, who'd pulled the pair of them to standing and was crushing Harry's back to his front; Ron, who had his strong forearm against Harry's windpipe and the lit tip of his wand to the side of Harry's head.

"Ron!" Hermione cried, taking a faulty step from the stairs. Harry saw her legs shudder painfully; she let out a bit of a cry and Harry held up a hand, silently urging her to stop—

"Don't touch her!" Ron growled into his ear. Harry raised his own hands to where Ron held him, clawing at the tensed muscles in an attempt to free his airway and save himself from certain suffocation. " _Do you hear me?_ "

Harry was certain if Ron could just hear his voice, all of this would be a nonissue.

From the banister, Hermione appeared impossibly paler, voice threatening to crack as she tried to find more volume. "Ron, that's Harry!" Through the spots in his vision, Harry could see her panicked face and read her anxious body language. Her voice was thick with tears; Harry was not sure if this helped or hurt his case. " _I'm alright!_ " she sobbed.

Just as Harry was certain he'd die this way, by the hand of his nightmare-haunted, sleep-walking best mate, with his other best mate watching helplessly from the stairwell, there was another flurry of activity from the steps and then Bill's frantic baritone: " _Expelliarmus!"_

Ron's wand soared through the air and landed safely in Bill's outstretched palm. Bill surged forward, wrestling Ron's forearm from Harry's throat. Harry stumbled forward onto all fours, coughing and spluttering.

Bill tackled Ron across the room. The two popped back up to their feet as Bill shoved Ron sharply against the far wall. Bill's scarred face was alarmed and confused, but the anger coursing through it was intimidating.

Bill was strong, Harry knew, but he suspected Ron was stronger. Ron, however, was also half-asleep, and coming off several months of starvation and cold; it was because of this, Harry reckoned, that Ron could not break Bill's grip on his shoulders.

In his matching pyjama set, huffing and puffing with bewilderment and exertion, the eldest Weasley boy was the spitting image of a younger, ponytailed Arthur.

"What—the _buggering hell—_ is going on here?"

As the chaos subsided and Harry felt his lungs fill back up with air, he became acutely aware of the heartbreaking sound ricocheting off the walls.

He had seen Hermione cry countless times over their seven years of friendship. He did not see it as a sign of weakness, but rather just a trait that made her who she was: Ron was stubborn, hot-headed and loyal, and Hermione was clever, kind, and vulnerable.

It was because of these facts that he felt his heart break at this particular moment: he had seen Hermione emotional so many times, but he had never—not after Ron left, not at Dumbledore's funeral, not during her torture—never, _ever_ heard her make such gut-wrenching sounds as she was now.

She was crying so hard she was shaking—no, convulsing—Harry pushed himself to standing, balanced on the balls of his feet, and found himself again frozen between his two best friends.

On the far side of the room, Bill was shaking Ron's shoulders. "Ron," he was saying, worry penetrating his usually calm voice. The anger in his eyes had given way to pure panic. " _Ron, are you alright?_ "

"'Ermione," Fleur said urgently from the other side of the room, blue eyes huge in her face. "Come—you must rest, you are much too weak—"

But Hermione did not move as Fleur tugged her gently, instead reaching a level of hysteria that made the decision for Harry: in two strides, he'd closed the gap between himself and Hermione.

"Hermione," he said as tenderly as he could. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her weight—as little as it was—was completely dependent on Fleur, whose level of concern was setting off red alarms in Harry's brain. "Hermione, you're safe, we're all safe—"

It did nothing to calm her. With a meaningful glance toward Fleur, Harry collected Hermione into his arms, supporting her as she threatened to collapse at his feet.

"Ron's fine," he said quietly, just to her. The bones of her clavicles poked into his open palms as he tried to comfort her. "Come with me—look, Hermione, please—Ron's _fine._ "

Harry's voice did not penetrate her state, though; an idea struck him and he began to lead her across the room.

Bill, who was still containing a weakly-fighting Ron, turned around to face Harry and Hermione, throwing his arms open so as to protect them from his brother.

"Harry," Bill said in a warning voice, "now might not be the time—he's in a right state—"

But from behind him, Ron's wide-eyed face appeared. His eyes jumped from Harry's sleep-swept form to Hermione, who remained inconsolable. Harry had one arm around her shoulders and the other wrapped around her waist across her front as he half-carried, half-dragged her toward Ron.

"Hermione?"

Her name on Ron's lips was so familiar to Harry's ears that he immediately knew the threat was over, the moment was done. He waved Bill off; the older Weasley, after a second's hesitation in which he studied Ron's face before perhaps seeing what Harry had heard in his voice, backed off, retreating to where Fleur stood by the steps.

The moment he was free from Bill, Ron took a few steps forward, stopping just in front of where Harry and Hermione stood. "Hermione," he said again, voice full of relief and apology and something so much more monumental.

"Look, Hermione, he's alright," Harry said. Her breathing had returned to a more regular rate, her color was a bit better, and Harry was no longer certain she'd pass out from stress alone, but she was still wailing and trembling in his arms. "Right, Ron? You're alright." He glanced urgently at Ron. "Tell her you're alright."

That seemed to be all it took to snap him out of it: the next moment, Ron was collecting Hermione from Harry's arms and sinking onto the loveseat. Immediately, his face was in her hair and she was half in his lap.

"I'm sorry," he was repeating as he, too started to cry. His tall, slender frame shook with powerful tears Harry had never seen from him before. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

Harry was certain Ron's apology was for so much more than just the fright he'd given them all.

Harry turned his back on them and faced the rest of the room, which had taken on a bit of a shell-shocked silence in the wake of all the excitement. "We're okay here," he said lowly. He caught Fleur's gaze and then Bill's; he held it as he finished. "It's been a long couple of days for us."

It was a shoddy explanation, he knew. He also knew Ron's eldest brother was a Curse-Breaker, his wife an accomplished graduate of Beauxbatons; if they hadn't yet figured out the circumstances of their arrival, they surely would after such a dramatic night.

From behind him, Hermione's crying had stopped—the sound had been replaced by Ron's shuddering breaths and Hermione's mumbled words of comfort.

To the small audience by the stairs, Harry said, "We're sorry to have woken you."

Bill's eyes, several shades darker than Ron's but still a clear, pure blue, locked on to Harry's. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but dropped it, sighing and running a hand over his face before reaching for the vial Dean held in his white-knuckled hands.

"Dreamless Sleep," he said tiredly. "The last of it. I reckon you lot ought to split it three ways."

At any other time, Harry would've refused to accept it—the last of their stores, in the middle of a war? It was rude to accept—but he knew his two best friends were suffering behind him, knew they'd never return to sleep after such an event, so he accepted the vial gratefully from Bill.

"Thank you," he said. "Truly, Bill—I don't know that you understand—"

"I do, Harry," Bill said simply, brushing a lock of hair away from where his scar, mean and puckered, cut across his face. He smiled sadly and wrapped an arm around Fleur. "I really do."

With that, all of them—including Dean—were gone, leaving Harry, Ron, and Hermione alone.

Harry unstoppered the vial and passed it wordlessly to Ron, who raised it to Hermione's lips. She looked catatonic from where she leaned heavily on him, but drank the shimmery purple liquid without hesitation. Ron drank another third and returned the vial to Harry, who stoppered it and stowed it in his flannel pocket.

Deciding it would be best to leave the pair of them as alone as possible, Harry settled back into his sleeping bag, willing his eyes shut and praying to a deity he reckoned couldn't exist for peace for his friends.

"Hermione," Ron said quietly after a while. Harry noticed his voice still trembled a bit when he spoke. "We ought to get you back to bed, you'll be more comfortable there."

Harry turned in time to see Hermione pull her head from his shoulder, looking groggy and very much like she'd just consumed a third of a vial of Sleeping Draught.

"I'd prefer to stay here."

"That's alright," Ron replied softly. "I can set up the couch for you."

"I'd—I'd actually rather be between you and Harry, if that's alright."

"Hermione," Ron said tenderly. "I—you really should be somewhere comfortable, you need to rest, your body needs to heal—"

"I know," Hermione said thickly, and Harry felt his heart clench at the sound. "I…" she cleared her throat before continuing, "I just think it's the only way I'll get any sleep."

"Reckon we can remedy this," Harry said, and with a quick flick of his wand he'd casted a cushioning charm along the center of the sitting room floor. Harry crawled over to where Dean had been sleeping and settled under the quilt there before tapping the spot he'd just vacated. "Kept it warm for you, Hermione."

Ron helped her to a sitting position on the loveseat, eyes not leaving her once. She rose to her feet and winced, prompting Ron to quickly lift her into his arms.

"Ron," she said in a voice that attempted exasperation, though it was lost to the tiredness and fondness that crept in. "I'm not an invalid—"

"Yeah, yeah, don't we know it," Ron said playfully. "Just let me have my moment, alright?"

Hermione said nothing as Ron settled her onto the newly cushioned floor beneath Harry's quilt.

Ron lay on her other side, moving a bit closer to her than Harry had expected. Hermione inhaled deeply and folded herself into Ron's side, but she reached a hand back to encase Harry's.

"We're alright," she breathed. The relief in her voice was tangible. Perhaps more to herself than anyone else, it came again: "We're alright."

Ron snorted, but his arm tightened around her. "'Alright' may be a bit inaccurate—"

"—perhaps 'barmy' or 'mental' would be a smidge more precise—"

"—honestly, 'alright' seems like a compliment at this point—"

"—reckon I'd cut my arm off if it'd make things 'alright'—"

"Oh, shut up, both of you," Hermione sighed sleepily, though Harry was sure he heard the ghost of a smile. By the next moment, her breathing was deep and regular and _peaceful_.

There were a few breaths in which neither Ron nor Harry spoke. Harry had turned to face Hermione's back, where Ron was tracing mindless shapes into the back of her jumper.

Finally, Harry cleared his throat and asked, "You alright, mate?"

Ron didn't answer for a while. Harry thought he might've fallen asleep until he saw his large hand tighten on Hermione's shoulder and pull her a bit closer to him.

"Dunno," came Ron's voice finally, and Harry thought he might be crying again. "I…" he cleared his throat. "I reckon I'm not sure if I ever will be again."

It was a powerful statement from Ron, who was almost always full of positive energy and found a bright side to even the worst situations.

Wordlessly, Harry pulled the vial of Dreamless Sleep from his flannel pocket and bumped it against the hand Ron was clutching Hermione with. Ron grasped for the vial and frowned into the moonlight as his hand closed around it.

"You drink it, mate," Ron said. "I'll—I'll fall asleep eventually—"

"Don't need it," Harry lied. "I'm knackered. Take it."

"You're sure?"

"Positive."

Harry watched as Ron unstoppered the vial and drained it.

Eventually, Ron's breathing evened out and his soft snores filled the room.

Harry closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of his friends sleeping peacefully; in the back of his mind he heard echoes of Hermione's screams of pain, of Bellatrix's curses, of Ron's broken sobs. His scar throbbed painfully.

He did not sleep a wink that night.


	6. A Cool Summer Evening at the Burrow

_A/N: I realize the majority of these are ending up being R/Hr centric, with Hermione sleeping; I do apologize, and promise that I have quite a few bouncing around my brain that don't follow this same theme. Thanks for reading!_

* * *

 _6\. A Cool Summer Evening At The_ _Burrow_

Most days, Harry was sure he could count on one hand the number of places that made him feel truly and completely safe.

Hogwarts, of course, was the first place that came to mind—or had been, he reckoned grimly, considering his most recent memory of it involved the lifeless forms of several people he loved, and he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to reconcile the two concepts of _safety_ and _death._ But it had been his first true _home_ , the first place he'd felt like a person rather than an old vacuum cleaner stowed under the stairs.

Without a doubt, the Burrow was the second. Hogwarts May have been his first home, but the Burrow was his permanent one—the place at which he'd spend the remainder of his holidays, ringing with the greatest memories of his life, full of the people his children would call their family.

The third place was one less concrete, but just as valid all the same. It was somewhere he found himself often, somewhere he found himself now: he felt safe when he was alongside Ron and Hermione.

It was unlike him to be this pensive, but Harry reckoned these new philosophical tendencies were a direct result of both the end of the reign of terror by a murderous dark wizard and the vacant space left by the eviction of the very same murderous dark wizard from his head.

Harry snorted so loudly he almost choked. Seven years ago, Hagrid had uttered those four words— _Harry, yer a wizard—_ and his life had changed in the most mental of ways.

A long arm appeared from his right and smacked his shoulder, hard. Harry flinched and rubbed the spot. It would undoubtedly bruise.

"Would you pipe down, you speccy git? She's finally asleep."

Ron's harsh whisper cut through the silence like venom. Harry met his eyes and frowned at the look he saw there.

"What's got your knickers in a twist?"

"She hasn't slept in days!"

" _Look_ at her," Harry said, motioning to the sleeping form draped across them on the couch. Hermione's head sat heavily on his right thigh, her tangled hair covering his entire lap. "Reckon I can't tell if she's asleep or actually dead."

As the words left his lips, Harry became acutely aware that he'd said precisely the wrong thing. Ron's face went ghost white and he swallowed thickly, pulling his hands from where they'd been rubbing circles along Hermione's blanketed shins.

"I—sorry, mate, you know I didn't—"

"I know," Ron said quietly. "It's alright. Just… ever since the Manor—"

"Ron, we don't have to talk about—"

Ron shook his head. "I—I think I've got to," he said. "At least—I dunno—Bill says I've got to."

Harry decided not to comment on this, instead letting Ron pause before starting to speak again.

"The… the first couple of days after the battle, when I was…"

Harry nodded. _Holed up in your room,_ he finished silently.

"…Bill paid me a visit, right before I came down for dinner that night. Told me that there are things we need to talk about, even if we don't think we're ready. I, er," he coughed a bit, rubbed the back of his neck, "told him, in maybe fewer words, that I reckoned he didn't have much experience with, y'know, traumatizing events." He puffed out a guilty breath. "Put me in my place, didn't he?"

Harry offered a grim smile. "Sometimes it's easy to forget that barmy rubbish happens to other people too."

"Well, last time I ever do that."

"Wait—is that why you came down with that poorly glamoured black eye?"

"Did I actually convince anyone that I'd been throwing a Quaffle in the air and accidentally dropped it on my face?"

"Had me convinced," Harry muttered.

Hermione twitched a bit on the couch, writhing for a moment and letting out a quiet moan before stilling again and finding peace. Ron grimaced.

Harry frowned. "Hard to watch."

"Understatement."

"Has she made an appointment at St. Mungo's yet?"

Ron gritted his teeth this time, looking physically pained. "Work in progress," he said. "She's under the impression that she's got to wait until the _more critical_ patients are treated, because of course she's _fine, Ronald, honestly, I couldn't take a Healer's attention knowing someone who actually needed it was going without—"_

"That's rubbish, though," Harry said emphatically, choosing not to comment on the accuracy of Ron's impression of their friend. "She's got to be joking."

"Have you _ever,_ in seven years of knowing Hermione, known her to be rational when it comes to her own well-being?"

Harry opened and closed his mouth a few times before speaking. "I suppose that's where we typically come in."

Ron huffed a massive sigh, looking completely and utterly defeated. "Only so much we can do, though, I reckon. All I want to do is just make an appointment _for_ her…"

"But then she wouldn't go on principle."

Ron pulled a hand to his face and raked it from top to bottom. "Maybe I'll just Stun her and bring her in myself."

This drew a laugh out of Harry. "She'd hex your bollocks clean off."

Hermione chose this moment to begin quaking again. Ron brought a hand to her back, rubbing his large hand from the base of her spine to the base of her neck and down again. She whimpered but then quieted and stilled, pulling a deep breath in through her nose.

Harry read Ron's expression clearly. "You're actually considering it."

Ron inhaled sharply, returning his hand to Hermione's shin as he averted Harry's gaze. "Before we even got to the Manor," he began, "I don't know if you caught the stuff that Greyback was saying about her."

Harry's stomach dropped. He nodded. "Got the gist of it, I think."

"When we were down there in that cellar, and we heard her screaming… I—I mean, we knew she was being tortured, but all I could think was, _what else?_ "

"What else?" Harry echoed.

" _What else are they doing_?"

Ron's voice was haunted and his entire body had drained of color.

Harry considered the words before he realized what Ron was saying and he, too, felt himself blanch. "You thought Greyback was already…"

"I didn't know," Ron said. "That was enough, for me. We didn't know, and she was making those awful noises, and all I could think was that she was going to die up there, or something worse, while I was stuck in that ruddy basement, screaming my head off and trying to Apparate without a wand like an absolute tosser."

It was an almost ironic concept, a feat worse than death, but Harry knew what Ron was referring to.

"And it—it didn't happen, thank Merlin, but even once that sodding chandelier fell on her and I pulled her out, she wasn't moving at _all_ —and then you tossed me that wand and I was half in the ocean at Bill and Fleur's, absolutely convinced she was dead."

Harry froze immediately. The violent _thud_ of his heart sounded noisily in his ears. "I didn't know that," he said. "Bill came out and told me that she'd be alright—that you'd taken her inside."

Ron shook his head furiously, a tear cutting a path down his face before falling onto the quilt that covered Hermione. "She wasn't moving, I couldn't tell if she was breathing—I kept shaking her, and talking to her, and she wasn't saying anything back, nothing at all."

"Ron, I…"

"And then I carried her into the sitting room and Bill was yelling and Fleur was muttering all these mental spells and then Hermione was screaming, and it was so much worse than in that drawing room because—" Ron broke off, pulled in a deep breath, and then huffed it out. "Because we didn't know what was causing it. And then I realized that she could be…"

Harry let the half-finished sentence linger in the air for a moment. "Like Neville's parents."

"I was convinced, Harry," Ron said in a diminutive voice. "I almost lost my own mind, crying and yelling and cursing things, but then Bill pulled me aside and told me I needed to get a grip."

Harry could picture it, clear as day: while he was mourning Dobby, that infinite moment in which time stopped, Ron was pinned to the wall by his brother, sobbing inconsolably, convinced that Hermione had been tortured to insanity.

"I should've been there," said Harry fiercely, shaking his head. "I'm so sorry, Ron, I should've been there—it all happened so fast—"

"Blimey, Harry, you don't have to—"

"I was terrified, too. But you both needed me."

Ron considered this, shrugged his shoulders, and frowned. "Been plenty of times I wasn't there for you when you needed me."

"Plenty more when you were."

"Reckon I sound like I need a trip to St. Mungo's."

"You ought to," said Harry sincerely. "Honestly, Ron, we all went through trauma—"

Ron waved him off. "I'll be fine. Family needs me, mates need me, the whole bit."

"Whole lot of us needs you to take care of yourself."

Hermione shifted her head in Harry's lap, causing both boys to freeze and draw their attention to where her curls fanned out on his thigh. Her head was facing out toward the living room, but Harry could tell from her body language and steady breathing that she was still asleep.

"Still can't believe she put her sodding head in _your_ lap," Ron grumbled.

Harry laughed quietly, an authentic one that warmed his body top to bottom. "What can I say? I _am_ the Chosen—"

"Oi, don't even fucking say it."

Harry bit back another laugh. "You saw her. She was completely asleep sitting up. Guess it was just bad luck on your part that she fell this way."

"S'alright." Ron shrugged, rubbing a hand on her blanketed leg again. "If her shins are the best I can get, I'll take 'em."

"Oh, I'm sure you can get _much_ more than just—"

" _Don't."_


	7. Grimmauld Place at Dawn

_A/N: I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it. Tons of fun. Please review!_

* * *

 _7\. Grimmauld Place at Dawn_

"Harry," came a small, soft voice from across his room, and he shot upright in bed and fumbled for his glasses with one hand and raised his wand with the other. His face was wet with sweat, his throat was sore and scratchy, and the quilt was twisted about him in the bed—he realized he must've been screaming and thrashing.

"Oh, Harry, it's _me,_ " the voice added, and his sleep-heavy mind recognized it as belonging to Hermione. "You were having a nightmare—I could hear it from across the hall. Are you alright? Is it You-Know-Who again? Does your scar hurt? You mustn't let him in, you know, I keep telling you but I feel like you aren't—"

Harry threw his legs over the side of the bed and crammed his glasses on his face. "Where's Ron?" he asked, cutting off Hermione's rant and catching her attention with his name, as he knew he would. If he'd been loud enough to wake Hermione, surely he'd been loud enough to wake Ron—he knew his best mate could sleep competitively, but he was typically the first one awake at any sign of a threat.

"Sleeping still, I think. It was a long day scouting out at the Ministry for him, and it rained the whole day, and I think he's under the weather but won't tell us, I've caught him sniffing and sneezing when he thinks we aren't listening, and I don't think his immune system is quite as strong as ours—the minute any of them sneezed growing up, Molly would brew up a batch of Pepperup and that was the end of it." By the light of her wandtip, Harry watched her bite her lip and toss a concerned look over his shoulder. "I wish I'd thought to bring potion supplies, or at least a cauldron—I wonder if Kreacher could find us some if we asked—"

"Hermione," Harry said, feeling his mouth curl up into a smile as he chuckled. "You're doing that thing again, y'know, where you rant when you're nervous. What's going on?"

Hermione sighed and stepped into the room, casting a quick silencing charm as the door creaked when she shut it. She advanced to settle next to him on his bed. "Just everything, I guess."

Harry mocked surprise in his best Dolores Umbridge voice. "Hermione _Granger_ , how un _like_ you to be so sim _plistic_."

She whacked him lightly on the shoulder. "You know what I mean. I—I mean, I know Ron's dad's Patronus said they were safe, but of course I'm worried for his family. They're like my family, too. And yours too, I know."

Harry nodded silently in agreement.

"And then, of course, there's everyone from school," she continued. "Luna, Neville, Dean… even Lavender," she finished with a bit of a sour look on her face.

She laced the fingers of both hands together and wrung them together, staring into her lap as she did. "And of course, I'm worried about my—about…"

"You can say it, Hermione. It's okay. They're your parents. Just because mine are dead doesn't mean you can't be worried about yours. It's a bloody war, you're Harry Potter's best friend, and you've just done a complex memory charm to send them away." When he studied her, her face was whiter than moments before, and he quickly tried to backtrack a bit. "Brilliantly, might I add. Almost stupid for you to worry. No chance anyone finds them."

"It's my fault that they're gone, that I even need to worry. That's why it feels silly for me to complain."

"Like hell," Harry snorted. "You'd need to worry more if they were still Mr. and Mrs. Granger of Britain."

"I guess," Hermione said. She sounded entirely unconvinced and more than a little disheartened.

"Hermione," Harry said tenderly, "if this is too much for you—if you don't want to do this, or you want to hide with your family, or whatever, you know I won't blame you—you've done so much already, this is my fight to fight, not anybody else's—"

"Oh, God, not _this_ again!" Hermione groaned, falling backward onto Harry's bed with her hands over her eyes. "Please, Harry, I appreciate the gallantry, but spare me."

"I mean it."

Hermione heaved another sigh. "I do apologize for bringing all of this up again," she said, ignoring his comment. "My parents, I mean. I know you've got loads of other things to worry about, and here I am, rambling on about this again."

Harry fell back next to her on the bed, mimicking her previous motion. Her head lolled to the side to study him, but he stared at the ceiling, tracing the patterns there, wondering how many times Sirius had done the same himself.

"As tired as I am of discussing this with you," Harry teased, nudging Hermione's shoulder with his own, "I always will, hope you know."

Hermione smiled a watery smile and reached for Harry's hand. "I'm lucky to have you," she said. " _Both_ of you."

"One more than the other, d'you reckon?"

"Oh, _shut up_ —"

"I'm just asking, rhetorically of course, if you had to choose," Harry said seriously.

Hermione was laughing through her fake indignation now, and Harry joined in, enjoying the feeling of normalcy that had evaded them in the past few days.

"Do you know what I miss more than anything else?" Hermione said whimsically.

"Homework?" Hermione smacked him again. He raised his hands in defense. "Okay, okay. What?"

"It's positively mad," Hermione warned.

"Couldn't possibly be madder than homework."

She turned back to face the ceiling. Harry studied the way her eyes lit up and a mischievous smile crept onto her face. "Molly's full English," she said finally.

A surprised laugh popped out of Harry, but as he thought about it, he couldn't help but reckon he agreed. That's what his summers were always full of—redheaded teenagers, wide open orchards, and home-cooked Molly Weasley meals—and it felt strange, improper, almost, that he was holed up in Grimmauld Place with only one redhead, eating whatever hadn't spoiled or Kreacher could manage to nick from the market.

"God, I was about to tell you you'd gone round the twist, but I think I agree with you," Harry said. "Eggs and bacon and sausage and beans and tomatoes and scones—"

" _Scones,_ oh, my goodness, I forgot about _scones_ ," Hermione moaned, clasping her hands over her heart as she spoke. "Harry, I think I'd cast an Unforgivable for a Molly Weasley lemon cream scone right now."

"Hermione _Granger,_ " Harry said again in his Umbridge voice. "An Unfor _givable?_ Four _billion_ points from Gryffindor."

Hermione groaned. "God, don't; you might turn into a toad, and then what would we do?"

"Ah, yes," Harry said sagely, "Harry Potter, the Toad Who Lived."

The two of them laughed and laughed, turning this way and that on the bed as they held their quaking stomachs. He missed this, he realized; in between the chaos and carnage and madness that they'd dealt with over six years at Hogwarts, he, Hermione and Ron had spent so much time _laughing_ , and with everything going on, they'd had opportunities to do so very few and far between.

After several long minutes, when their laughs died down, Harry sat up abruptly in the bed, mind whizzing with an idea.

"What?" Hermione said nervously, sitting up next to him and placing a hand on his shoulder. "Is it your scar again?"

"What do you say we make a full English?"

* * *

An hour later, the sun was rising outside the front windows to number twelve, Grimmauld Place, welcoming another dreary August day. Kreacher had been instructed to leave, and Harry was huddled over the stove, pushing a large helping of scrambled eggs around a pan, while Hermione fussed over the scones she'd just pulled from the oven.

"Look at us, putting around this wizarding kitchen like a couple of Muggles," said Harry.

"Nothing wrong with that," Hermione said. "In _Magical Kitchens and Cuisine_ —"

" _Sorry?_ "

"Honestly, Harry, you'd think you were illiterate—in _Magical Kitchens and Cuisine_ , they cite research that certain foods are both more savory and flavorful when cooked using Muggle methods."

"Still not sure why you went with chocolate," Harry said, although he was _very_ sure of why she'd done exactly that. "We've got all the ingredients for lemon cream."

Hermione turned a brilliant shade of pink, plating the scones and ignoring his comment. "They're just the ugliest looking things," she lamented, splitting one in half and nibbling off a small corner. Her expression changed from distaste to one of wonder as she hummed appreciatively. "Oh, but who cares; they're _heaven_ , Harry, you've got to—"

Harry had just placed the scone in his mouth and was ready to sing Hermione's praises when loud footfalls approached the kitchen. Harry raised his wand immediately and Hermione reached for hers on the counter, but they both relaxed when the lanky, redheaded form that was Ron appeared in the doorway, looking sleep-swept and pale.

As he took in the scene of the kitchen, his mouth opened and closed comically several times before he finally decided on, "What in the name of Merlin's beard is going on in here?"

Harry scooped a large helping of eggs from the pan and placed them on a plate. Hermione, still blushing, held out a scone to Ron, whose eyes went as wide as dinner plates in his face as he appreciated the item in her hand.

Ron took a large bite of the scone. His expression turned from one of surprise to one of ecstasy and he sank into a chair, making mildly inappropriate noises as he did so.

Smirking, Harry held out the plate of eggs and fixings, and Ron's eyes widened impossibly further. "Hungry?"


	8. September in Somerset

_8\. September in Somerset_

Against all odds, they were laughing. All three of them, together, around the fire, _laughing_ at a story Ron was telling about Fred and George.

"On my Mum's life," Ron was saying through a mouthful of one of the dozens of tins of beans Harry had nicked from the Muggle market that day, nearly choking with hysterics as he held a hand over his heart, "Fred said, age ten, with the most innocent face he's ever worn, _but Mum, Percy was wanking in the sitting room_ , and George held up a sock and nodded as if his life depended on it."

When Harry and Hermione exploded with cackles again, Ron fell onto his back, dropping the tin of beans to his side in favor of clutching his stomach as he joined in. "I've never seen Percy so white—or Mum so red!"

Ron had become markedly moodier after the splinching; Harry and Hermione had credited his grumpiness to his pain. Now, though, it had been weeks—they were coming up on October—and Ron's moods had only gotten worse as his injury healed.

But today was the best Ron had looked in ages. Perhaps it was the firelight, perhaps it was the midday sunlight peeking through the clouds, but Harry thought his color looked better, his eyes less tired, his mood much improved. Hermione had changed the makeshift dressing on his shoulder that morning. The Horcrux sat between all of them, pulsing and hissing but untouched in the dirt.

Harry was beside himself—his abdomen hurt because he was laughing so hard. Hermione had called him over to see something she'd read in her book, and he was now leaning his entire weight against her as they laughed and laughed.

" _Ronald!"_ she screeched, but she couldn't even pretend to be cross.

"Oi!" Ron fired back as he sat up, leaves sticking up in all different directions from his hair, which had gotten quite longer than he typically wore it. He thrusted his right arm out, pointing a long finger at Hermione with a grin. "You can't blame me! I was only eight at the time, I was innocent—"

"Oh, _right!"_ said Harry with a loud snort through his guffaws, making all of them laugh even harder, "yeah, mate, bet you were just an angel about all of it, youngest boy with five prats of older brothers, eight years old—you had _no_ clue what was going on there!"

"Stop, _stop!"_ Hermione begged, looking very much like somebody who hadn't breathed in several minutes.

"Listen, all I knew was that Fred and George were beside themselves, Percy was running for the orchard, and Mum chased him about halfway there before she remembered she was a witch and could deal with him with magic." Ron dragged a huge, freckled hand down the front of his face, chuckling as he did so. His smile was brighter than the flames. "Can't believe I never told you lot that story. God, I think Percy's arse was as red as his hair for about a month."

There were a few minutes of silence as they composed themselves. Harry stood up to put another log on the flame and retreated to his original spot between them. Sensing a change in the mood, Harry looked to Ron, noting the somber expression on his face as he picked leaves from his hair.

"I always wished I had siblings," Hermione said thoughtfully after a while. "It was lonely sometimes."

"Wanted someone to sharpen your pencils with, did you?" said Harry cheekily. "Or to alphabetize your books with, or to memorize the dictionary—"

"Hey!" Hermione said, whacking Harry with—what else—the book she had in her lap. " _Unfortunately_ , instead of a real sibling, I got stuck with _you_ to sharpen my pencils with, _"_ she teased, poking him. "Wouldn't have been my first pick, honestly, but you'll do."

Ron, who had looked lost since the first mention of pencils, stiffened up a bit from his spot round the fire and was eyeing Harry curiously. It appeared that he was acutely aware that Hermione had singled Harry out as her stand-in brother; to Harry, this was for obvious reasons (for one, Ron had a massive family of his own whereas Hermione had essentially orphaned herself for the safety of her parents and Harry had been orphaned years ago himself, for two, both Ron and Hermione were disgustingly though obliviously infatuated with each other, which Harry felt was typically not customary between siblings), but Ron seemed to have interpreted this in a third and very different fashion.

"Would you've Obliviated them too, then?"

Ron's voice was tight, his jaw locked, and Harry was certain that things had taken a drastic turn for the worse. Ron was back to looking sickly, bags dark and angry under his eyes, contrasting starkly with the sheet-white color of his face. His wound from the splinching had bled through the dressing a bit, staining the fabric an angry red. The forest might have dropped ten degrees.

"Sorry?" said Hermione. Her eyebrows had shot high up on her forehead, but she sounded far more confused and disbelieving than angry.

Harry expected this to change shortly.

"A sibling, if you had one," Ron said, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world and a very appropriate, normal, and inoffensive question to ask a witch who'd sent her parents to a different continent to keep them safe from a war and possible Muggle genocide.

Hermione, who now seemed to understand where the conversation was headed, looked quite unhappy. "I didn't Obliviate them, Ronald, you know that," she snapped. "It was a different sort of modified Memory Charm. Obliviation is highly dangerous and easy to muck up and it's not to be taken lightly—"

"—didn't hesitate a minute back in that diner, did you—"

"— _and it couldn't possibly be selective enough to remove one person from years of memories as its effects are very general despite the complexity of the magic and actual wandwork_ —"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Hermione, I don't need a fucking Charms lesson—"

" _And_ ," Hermione continued, voice now at a shrill shout, "for your information, the only documented way it's been broken is by torture, and I'd like to think you know me better than to assume I'd plan to _torture_ my own parents to restore their memories!"

"Well, you sent them across the bloody world with no sodding clue they had a daughter, didn't you? What if you can't find them, Hermione?" yelled Ron, looking to Harry for support. Harry did not even indicate that he'd heard Ron, so Ron turned back to Hermione, who was stunned silent with her mouth wide open.

Harry was just ready to intervene, suspecting things might go from bad to worse, when Ron's expression changed from pure rage to deep, genuine grief, and then to a masked embarrassment and regret.

A heart-wrenching sob cut through the dry September air.

" _What else was I supposed to do?_ " Hermione was standing now, head in her hands as she cried so powerfully that she could barely stand. The book was forgotten, facedown in the dirt next to her, and Harry thought wildly of how fantastic of a day they'd been having until this precise moment. She opened her mouth to speak again and Harry was terrified of what might come out—she and Ron had gone quite long without a row and he'd forgotten how cruel they could get—but all she could do was repeat, " _What else was I supposed to do?"_ in that tortured, broken voice.

Hermione faltered a step backward and leaned against the tree there, head still in her hands. Harry stood to go to her, casting a murderous glance at Ron as he did so. Ron's face was even paler than usual, and his expression was one of supreme sadness.

"Hey, hey, hey," Harry said lowly, for he could find no other words to say to her. Instead, he wrapped a tentative arm around her and she immediately dropped her head on his shoulder. She repeated it again, so desperately that it threatened to split Harry in half: _what else was I supposed to do?_

Although they'd only talked about it once or twice, he knew she carried an immense amount of guilt with her over the decision she'd made regarding her parents. And it was a great question, thought Harry: what else _was_ she supposed to do? The Ministry was compromised, so they couldn't offer protection, and the Order was already way in over their heads. They, too, could be compromised—Snape was one of them, after all.

The fact of it, as far as Harry was concerned, was this: She was Harry Potter's brilliant Muggle-born best friend, and the moment they left for this mission and Death Eaters began to hunt for him, they'd be hunting for her, too. The only option would be to send her parents away.

Behind them, Ron got up and stormed into the tent.

He and Hermione stood together for a while. Eventually, Hermione pulled herself from Harry's arms, raising her mittened hands to wipe her face. Harry bent to pick up her book, dusting the cover off and marveling at the sheer size of it. _Symbols, Ciphers, and Runes: A Historical Guide to the Puzzles of the Wizarding World by Juniper von Twinkle._

Mad, thought Harry, that such a topic could encompass so many pages.

"I'm going for a walk," Hermione said quietly, head angled so far downward that Harry couldn't even see her eyes through her riot of hair.

"Let me come with you," Harry said. "We can talk about—I dunno. All those books you used to alphabetize. Or pencils."

"I'd like to be alone," she said harshly, making Harry cringe. She sighed and finally looked up at him; her eyes were puffy and red, cheeks blotchy and moist with missed tears. "Sorry. I just need to…"

"Don't need to explain yourself to me," Harry said with an encouraging smile. "Just be safe, please. Don't go too far."

"I'll just be at the lake we fetched water at yesterday. I'll send my Patronus if I need you. Just… don't tell Ron, I'm sure he'll come to find me, and I just want to think for a moment."

Harry nodded and held her book out to her. She smiled—a real one, albeit small—and accepted it. "Thank you, Harry."

It took Harry approximately three seconds to get from the entrance flap of the tent to the chair where Ron sat nursing a cup of tea.

Ron didn't even have a moment to speak—Harry advanced on the table, swiped the mug across the room, and grabbed Ron by the collar of his jumper.

"Is there something fucking wrong with you?"

It was comical, really—Harry had a bit of muscle on him from years of Quidditch, but Ron, despite his lankiness, had a lifetime of working in the garden, orchard Quidditch, and wrestling with older brothers on his side.

But Ron didn't shove Harry off, or twist out of his grip, or point out that he could probably pick Harry up and throw him out of the tent; instead, his face turned bright red and an expression of absolute regret and pain flooded his features.

" _Yes!"_ he said emphatically, raising his good arm to drag a hand through his hair. "Yes, there's something wrong with me, I'm the absolute biggest tosser in Europe, possibly the world, most definitely England."

Surprised by this but satisfied with where it was going, Harry released his grip on Ron's collar and pulled out his wand to clean the spilled tea and repair the broken mug. He sat in the chair across from Ron when he was finished, trying to stifle his anger. "Go on."

Ron groaned loudly and dumped his head onto his folded arm on the table. "God, I can't believe I said any of that, I didn't mean any of it, truly, Harry, you've got to believe me—"

"Of course _I_ know you didn't mean it, you git, but _she doesn't,_ and that's the only thing that matters. What could've possibly ticked you off so badly that you would bring up her _parents?_ You know how badly she feels, you _know_ she did the right thing—"

"I know, I know!" Ron stood up and began to pace, something Harry only saw him do in times of extreme stress. "Fucking hell, this is it, this is the worst thing I've done to her, been friends six years and all I've done is make her cry, but this is it, I've completely buggered it up now—"

"Okay, okay," Harry said, rising to his feet and crossing the tent. Ron's breathing had changed to an erratic sort of huffing. Harry put his hands on Ron's shoulders and puffed out a deep breath, muttering to himself, "My God, if this Boy Who Lived thing doesn't work out, I think I'll go into psychiatry."

"Psy- _what?_ "

"Nothing, never mind. Look, you shouldn't have said any of that rubbish. But you did and now you've got to deal with it and beg for forgiveness."

Ron pulled away from Harry and retreated to his bunk. "She'll never forgive me," he moaned as he pulled on his coat.

"Honestly, Ron, what the hell's got your knickers in a twist? We were laughing, having a great time—and it can't be just the Horcrux, mate, we're all wearing it."

Harry knew it was a bit cruel that he'd even asked the question. He knew exactly what had set Ron off because it was the same thing that always set Ron off: jealousy.

Ron's cheeks flooded with a bit of color and he looked anywhere but at Harry. Instead of answering or even acknowledging Harry's question, he walked to the entrance to the tent.

"Which way did she go?"

Harry hiked a thumb in the direction opposite from the lake. Ron nodded, pulled the flap, and was gone.

* * *

"Hermione?"

Harry woke with a start. He'd only just fallen asleep, so the soft voice was enough to wake him. Shoving his glasses on, he looked up in time to see Ron's tall figure pull open the tent's flap, poking his head out as he did.

There was a sniff in response but nothing more.

"Hey," Ron said, presumably to Hermione, who was on watch, and Harry watched him slip into the night, jamming his hands into his pockets as he did so. His voice was tender; this was the tail-between-the-legs apology Harry had been anticipating all day long.

"I'm fine out here," Hermione said shortly, but her voice was higher than normal and Harry had known her long enough to know she'd been crying. Ron let out a long breath and Harry heard the scruff of his trainers—probably sitting next to her in the dirt.

"Hermione, listen to me—"

"Don't, Ronald."

A chill rippled through Harry at her tone.

"No. No, I'm going to," said Ron. "Listen or don't listen, stay or leave, but I'm doing it. I'm sorry. In fact, I've never been sorrier in my life. Truly. I said all sorts of rubbish that I didn't mean because—because I'm stressed, and I'm hungry, and I'm tired, and whatever. And none of those things are excuses. I'm an absolute tosser, you'd both be better off without me—I can't get a grip sometimes and just go absolutely mad—you've got to believe me—"

Hermione's voice cut him off. It was angry, but in a different way than it had been previously.

"Don't say that."

"Why not? Sometimes I _can't_ get a grip—it happened earlier—everything was fine and then I was saying all this barmy shit that I knew I didn't want to say but I couldn't stop—"

"We would _not_ be better off without you."

A beat, in which Harry was sure Ron was processing what she'd said.

A half-laugh. "Oh, come off it, Hermione—"

"Stop talking like that."

"Just stating the obvious—"

"Stop. Talking. Like. That."

There was another much longer period of silence, after which Ron cleared his throat and said, "Uh, right."

Silence again.

And then:

"You are… absolutely brilliant, Hermione. I know I say it all the time—everyone does, and they ought to, you're a genius—but I mean it. You're my best friend, and I've been cocking things up with you since we were eleven because I'm a fucking git and I don't learn. And what you did for your parents—I mean—it was brilliant—and I can't imagine I could do it. I'm not tough enough, I'd be too selfish or scared or…"

There was a gust of wind that blew the tent flap open a good amount—Harry chanced a glance out at them to find that Hermione was on tiptoe, her fingers dusting over Ron's injured shoulder.

In the moonlight, Harry could see Ron's face of total surprise. Harry was equally as disbelieving—this was not typical of Hermione, who had a history of punching people, of setting canaries on people, of holding a grudge against Ron, as he always did to her—but as Ron's face swapped to a soft one of fondness, Harry saw Hermione's do so as well, although her eyes were set on his wound.

"You've started bleeding again," Hermione murmured.

"Yeah, reckon it's from earlier—I—I, uh, sort of had a run in with a log when I was looking for you, earlier; came out of nowhere, really, and I sort of tripped and then I had to catch myself."

A hint of a smile colored Hermione's voice. "Really."

"Whole thing was quite graceful, really; reckon they'll be calling me to join the ballet once all of this is through."

Hermione didn't address this, instead muttering spells under her breath, which Harry assumed were to clean Ron's dressed shoulder and reinforce the closure of the skin of the wound. Neither of them said anything for a while, and Harry felt himself slipping back to sleep when—

"Hermione?"

"Yes."

"I—I really am sorry. You've no idea how much. Truly."

Hermione's voice was soft. "I know you are, Ron."

It wasn't a solution, Harry reckoned, but it was a start.

* * *

A/N: If you're going to review and say that you find this unrealistic because Ron went below the belt in terms of this argument with Hermione, save it; since it's my story, it's my interpretation of the characters.

Ron's characterization by JKR during this time is very clear: he is stressed about the wellbeing of his family, he is injured, he is hungry, he is tired, he is frustrated with the lack of a plan and progress, and he's wearing the Horcrux eight hours a day. As a result he's irritable, he's rash, and he says things that he doesn't mean. Ron has always been a character that wears his heart on his sleeve and speaks his mind, and he has said and done knee-jerk things like this before in the actual fiction written by JKR.

I think the near-fist fight between he and Harry right before he leaves is a testament to this, and therefore makes this moment a bit more realistic

Thank you all for reading and please do review if you like! This one was a tough one; it didn't come out nearly as easily as the rest did, probably because I was writing conflict—and a pretty drastic one—which we see much less of with these characters.

Happy holidays! :)


End file.
